Learn about how HPE Aruba Networking Central provides DEM capabilities by blending real user monitoring with synthetic transaction monitoring (through HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight)
Modern networks are saturated with 4x more applications,1 and for network operators, the challenge isn’t just uptime, it’s understanding how applications behave across the infrastructure. Broad network observability that includes application performance is essential for diagnosing latency, identifying bottlenecks, and enforcing compliance policies.
Traditional monitoring tools may show basic traffic patterns but lack the granularity to answer questions such as:
- What major use cases or user groups is my network servicing?
- Is a user accessing approved collaboration tools or shadow IT?
- Is poor performance caused by RF conditions, TLS negotiation, or back-end latency?
- Are blocked apps still generating access attempts?
HPE Aruba Networking Central closes these gaps with Application Planet and Application Performance Analytics—the entry point to its digital experience monitoring (DEM) capabilities. These features unify insights across sites, devices, clients, and apps in a compact visual layout. By blending real user monitoring (through deep packet inspection technology) with synthetic transaction monitoring (through HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight), HPE Aruba Networking Central delivers a holistic, end-to-end view of application behavior and user experience.
- Application planet built for real-world NetOps
App Planet is a diagnostic interface for operators who need real-time visibility into application behavior. Accessible from the HPE Aruba Networking Central Home Page (after selecting a site), it provides both list and summary views through the Applications Dashboard, which highlights two core features: Application Health and HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight status.
Key capabilities
1. Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): Classifies 4000+ applications and 30+ websites into 80+ categories. Classification is continuously updated with TLS context, origin country, and risk scoring.
2. Web Content and Reputation: Enhance DPI by adding security context to web traffic, showing whether users are accessing sanctioned tools or risky domains.
3. Composite experience scoring: Calculates a user experience score based on application latency, RF conditions, TLS handshake success, and client behavior. This score is visualized as a green/yellow/red bar, with drilldowns to impacted clients.
Figure 1. Solar-system view of Central
Figure 2: List view of application planet
Let’s look at an example—User reports slowness in accessing Workday. App Planet allows you to:
- See if Workday is being allowed or blocked and its classification (public, private, or hybrid app)
- Check usage trends associated with security risks, and TLS visibility for Workday traffic
- Identify which user categories (corporate employee, contractor, guest, etc.) are trying to access Workday
- Detect whether the access attempt came from corporate-managed, personal, or IoT devices
- Drill down into which specific devices (for example, a laptop vs. a mobile phone) were used to access Workday
- Pinpoint anomalies—such as unusual log-in attempts from unexpected geographies or roles
All of this is available without deploying additional sensors or infrastructure. HPE Aruba Networking Central correlates app metrics with RF telemetry (signal strength, retries, channel utilization) to pinpoint root causes. This data also feeds into HPE Aruba Networking Central Client Insights for advanced profiling across wired, wireless, and IoT endpoints.
Within the Application Dashboard, admins also see a summary of top apps and websites, their security posture, and usage trends. The Timeline widget allows flexible analysis (3 hours, 1 day, 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days), with two-minute intervals by default and zoom controls for deeper inspection.
Figure 3. Summary view of the Applications dashboard
HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight status and synthetic monitoring
While DPI provides visibility into actual user traffic, synthetic monitoring through HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight complements it with simulated transactions, which are critical for proactive diagnostics. This module is available within App Planet when HPE Aruba Networking Central and HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight are deployed in the same HPE GreenLake cloud workspace. Learn more here.
What HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight adds:
- Outside-in testing: HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight sensors and agents simulate real-world interactions with SaaS applications, even before users connect.
- Rich metrics: Latency, packet loss, jitter, HTTP request time, VoIP MOS (mean opinion score)
Continuous probing: Tests run at regular intervals across supported apps, providing a baseline for performance and alerting to deviations.
Figure 4. HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight telemetry in HPE Aruba Networking Central
Application performance analytics
Outside of the solar system views, Application Performance Analytics are integrated in HPE Aruba Networking Central’s AI-powered network optimization insights. These help IT teams move beyond raw metrics by benchmarking SaaS and real-time applications such as Microsoft Teams and Skype against peers. With guardrails that flag latency issues—such as poor experience when real-time apps such as Microsoft Teams exceed 200 ms—administrators can quickly distinguish between normal network behavior and true performance degradation. This empowers IT to proactively address issues before they disrupt productivity, ensuring users get a consistent experience across critical business applications.
Note: Application performance analytics requires an advanced license.
Figure 5. AI insight on application performance analytics
From fragmented visibility to operational assurance
If you’re not already using the new HPE Aruba Networking Central, just flip the switch to access powerful features. By unifying DPI (enable DPI through HPE Aruba Networking Central), synthetic testing, and real-time analytics, it transforms visibility into assurance—helping organizations keep business-critical apps secure, performant, and reliable at scale. These capabilities are included with the foundation license (App Analytics requires the Advanced license, and HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight integration needs a separate HPE Aruba Networking User Experience Insight license). Explore these capabilities by taking the demo today.
Learn more about HPE Aruba Networking Central.
1 “This is as per calculation—The market is projected to grow from USD 315.68 billion in 2025 to USD 1,131.52 billion by 2032,” Fortune Business Insights, September 29, 2025.
Meet the Author:
Ishani Chakraborty
